Tactics
Clearance
Sometimes the piece in the way is yours. Clearance moves it, often by giving it away, so that the square or the line it occupied can be used by something else. It is hard to see precisely because the move looks like a blunder: you are putting a piece where it can be taken in order to empty a square.
How to spot it
When a combination almost works and one of your own pieces is the reason it does not, that piece is the move. Ask what it could do on its way out, a check, a capture, a threat, so the opponent has no time to use the tempo you spent.
The positions
Easiest first. Every one is from a real game, and the rating under each board is what it costs the players who have tried it on lichess.
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1. Black to play Play it out →Answer
16...Bxe5 17.Bxe5 Qd5+ 18.e4 Qxe5
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2. White to play Play it out →Answer
32.Rxh6+ gxh6 33.Qg8#
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3. Black to play Play it out →Answer
24...Nf3+ 25.Bxf3 Qh2+ 26.Kf1 Qf2#
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4. White to play Play it out →Answer
30.Nf8+ Rxf8 31.Qg7#
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5. Black to play Play it out →Answer
12...Qc3+ 13.bxc3 Ba3#
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6. Black to play Play it out →Answer
26...Rxg5 27.hxg5 Qf3
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7. White to play Play it out →Answer
24.Rxf7 Qxf7 25.Qg7+ Qxg7 26.hxg7#
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8. White to play Play it out →Answer
28.Nd7+ Ka8 29.Bc5 Qxc5 30.Nxc5
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9. Black to play Play it out →Answer
18...Rxc3+ 19.bxc3 Ba3#
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10. Black to play Play it out →Answer
30...Rf1+ 31.Qxf1 Qh4+ 32.Kg1 Qh2#
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11. White to play Play it out →Answer
33.Rxg6+ fxg6 34.Qh8+ Kxh8 35.Rxf8#
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12. Black to play Play it out →Answer
7...Qh4+ 8.Nxh4 Nxd3+ 9.cxd3 Bg3#
Reading about a pattern is the easy half. Motify finds the positions where you missed one, by running your own lichess and Chess.com games through Stockfish, and puts each of them behind two or three puzzles on the same idea so you meet it having just found it three times. See how Motify works.
Positions from the lichess puzzle database, released under CC0.